May 06, 2017

Opinion Based Politics in the Age of the Idiot Proof City. And Dogs.

It is to be expected that opinions are sufficient to express one’s self interest. If the aims of American politics were limited to matters of self-interest to the ends of self-determination as conceived of by the Founders, then such opinions would be completely sufficient. However there are two compelling features of our contemporary situation which require more.

The first is that the barriers to suffrage as originally intended required a measure of propriety not required today of the voting citizen. The measure of civics would not be an abstract concept to be taught in a free public high school, it would be borne of experience in the conduct of a man of property. These were facts belonging to the people. The government need not notice or regulate.

The second is that the powers of government were not so extensive or intrusive into the everyday affairs of the common man. People were on their own to eat, for example, with no FDA to put labels on cans of food in supermarket shelves. These were facts belonging to the people. The government need not notice or regulate.

Today we are a society of hundreds of millions, few of whom could understand the complications of their own urban surroundings. As such we are unsustainably leveraged without a government in command of facts, rather like an un-aerodynamic fighter jet whose pilot could not hope to fly it without the aid of a computer system in command of facts.

What I am suggesting is that our society is too complex and unsustainable and requires simplification at the cost of comfort - that facts need to belong to the people. Those who seek to further automate our lives and provide complex comforts require government to be an ever more sophisticated computer to fly the fighter jet of society. This undermines our own independence, it in fact invites us to give up the acquisition of the skill required to navigate our own lives through society.

What therefore is Donald Trump? He is a man who has without question navigated his way through society to an extraordinarily successful degree. What is even more significant is that as a politician, he has navigated to the very pinnacle of electoral politics without the assistance or even permission of the computer minds of Washington DC, Hollywood, Madison Avenue or Silicon Valley. He has turned off the stability control, the anti-lock brakes, ripped out the airbags and burned rubber through a fast and furious drift around the gawking Prius owners. He has hot rodded the product of staid engineers. That frightens people who want government to engineer safety and comfort into the vehicle of society. The baby in the car seat is wailing.

As for dogs, there are at least two kinds of voters in America. Those who want to give a perfect loving home to a previously sheltered animal, who dress it up in designer sweaters and are willing to spend $600 for a visit to the vet to give treatments for its arthritic hip. They want an extensively regulated environment for the health and well-being of doggies, and they will keep pushing Congress until there are sufficiently funded dog parks, publicly available pooper scoopers, and that every coffee shop, nay every employer in every city is appropriately dog friendly. And there are those who just want their own puppy.

It should come as no surprise that the first voter tends to prefer frail toy breeds.

Comments

Opinion Based Politics in the Age of the Idiot Proof City. And Dogs.

It is to be expected that opinions are sufficient to express one’s self interest. If the aims of American politics were limited to matters of self-interest to the ends of self-determination as conceived of by the Founders, then such opinions would be completely sufficient. However there are two compelling features of our contemporary situation which require more.

The first is that the barriers to suffrage as originally intended required a measure of propriety not required today of the voting citizen. The measure of civics would not be an abstract concept to be taught in a free public high school, it would be borne of experience in the conduct of a man of property. These were facts belonging to the people. The government need not notice or regulate.

The second is that the powers of government were not so extensive or intrusive into the everyday affairs of the common man. People were on their own to eat, for example, with no FDA to put labels on cans of food in supermarket shelves. These were facts belonging to the people. The government need not notice or regulate.

Today we are a society of hundreds of millions, few of whom could understand the complications of their own urban surroundings. As such we are unsustainably leveraged without a government in command of facts, rather like an un-aerodynamic fighter jet whose pilot could not hope to fly it without the aid of a computer system in command of facts.

What I am suggesting is that our society is too complex and unsustainable and requires simplification at the cost of comfort - that facts need to belong to the people. Those who seek to further automate our lives and provide complex comforts require government to be an ever more sophisticated computer to fly the fighter jet of society. This undermines our own independence, it in fact invites us to give up the acquisition of the skill required to navigate our own lives through society.

What therefore is Donald Trump? He is a man who has without question navigated his way through society to an extraordinarily successful degree. What is even more significant is that as a politician, he has navigated to the very pinnacle of electoral politics without the assistance or even permission of the computer minds of Washington DC, Hollywood, Madison Avenue or Silicon Valley. He has turned off the stability control, the anti-lock brakes, ripped out the airbags and burned rubber through a fast and furious drift around the gawking Prius owners. He has hot rodded the product of staid engineers. That frightens people who want government to engineer safety and comfort into the vehicle of society. The baby in the car seat is wailing.

As for dogs, there are at least two kinds of voters in America. Those who want to give a perfect loving home to a previously sheltered animal, who dress it up in designer sweaters and are willing to spend $600 for a visit to the vet to give treatments for its arthritic hip. They want an extensively regulated environment for the health and well-being of doggies, and they will keep pushing Congress until there are sufficiently funded dog parks, publicly available pooper scoopers, and that every coffee shop, nay every employer in every city is appropriately dog friendly. And there are those who just want their own puppy.

It should come as no surprise that the first voter tends to prefer frail toy breeds.